Customized printing is a growing market with organizations constantly seeking new and unique ways in which to distinguish their products or message. One such method for drawing attention is by printing an image or message with the appearance of depth or motion known as “flat 3-D”. These effects can be accomplished by three-dimensional printing such as lenticular printing. Lenticular printing, however, is a fairly intensive multi-step process that involves the creation of a lenticular image from two or more images and then overlaying the resulting image with semi-cylindrical lenses. The printing and overlaying must be accomplished with significant precision in order to successfully achieve a three-dimensional effect. The creation of lenticular images typically requires specialty printing presses that are adapted to print on sensitive thermoplastic materials, such as lithographic offset printers, and specific ultraviolet-cured inks. Another limitation of lenticular printing is that it can only provide a three-dimensional effect when viewed from limited angles due to the configuration of the lenticular lens.
Advances in media for three-dimensional printing now provide alternatives to lenticular printing for achieving a variety of very unique 3-D effects by printing on different sides of the stock and within layers of the stock. One such media is a plastic sheet that contains an array of convex lenses arranged horizontally and vertically on the top surface such that dimensional images can be seen from every position as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,130,126, entitled “Three Dimensional Plastic Sheet,” which issued to Chung on Oct. 31, 2006 and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Such media can be printed on both the top surface and under layers to create up to five layers of depth. Many conventional means of transfer technology, however, are incapable of printing directly onto the convex lenses of the top side due to the lens topography. This straight into the convex lenses gives an effect we call flat 3-D.
Thus, a need exists for an efficient and cost effective manner of printing three-dimensional images capable of being viewed from any angle or position and any side, including the convex lens side.